How the Commanders defense stepped up against the Buccaneers

Breaking down the adjustments the Commanders made on defense to help slow down the Bucs offense

The Commanders entered the playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday as underdogs largely down to their defense. The Commanders defense ranked middle of the pack in most statistical categories, while the Bucs ranked in the top five of most offensive categories, which was an obvious mismatch. Yet the Commanders defense managed to keep the Bucs largely in check and held them to just 20 points. So how did they do it? Let’s take a closer look.

Run Game

One of the biggest concerns going into the game was the Commanders ability to stop the run. The Bucs had one of the best rushing attacks in the league during the regular season, but the Commanders managed to contain Bucky Irving to just 77 yards on 17 carries. Now that’s a healthy 4.5 yards per carry average, but it’s significantly boosted by one run that went for 19 yards. Take away that outlier and Irving had 58 yards on 16 carries at 3.6 yards per carry. That’s a much more accurate representation of how well the Commanders run defense played in this game. So how did they do it? Well, there were a number of factors, starting with Bobby Wagner.

Wagner set the tone from the first run that the Bucs attempted. Here they try an outside zone scheme to their right and Wagner blows it up at the line of scrimmage for no gain. The Bucs have a pretty solid look to run this scheme at. Pre-snap, you’ll see the bubble that the Bucs want to attack in the Commanders front. Defensive tackle Daron Payne lines up in the A gap between the center and right guard, while defensive end Dorance Armstrong aligns outside the right tackle. That leaves what’s known as a bubble between Armstrong and Payne in the B gap between the right guard and right tackle.

Linebacker Frankie Luvu is responsible for filling that gap. However, there’s a definite opportunity for the Bucs here. If the center can reach Payne and seal him off on the back side while the left guard can climb and reach Bobby Wagner on the back side, then there could be a big lane created inside. Luvu can fire up to the line and fill the B gap, but as long as the guard blocks him in the B gap, then in theory, Luvu and Armstrong could be shoved outside while Wagner and Payne could be sealed inside, creating a big lane up the middle. That isn’t what happens here though, because all four defenders play this well.

Armstrong starts on the edge, setting a hard edge to force the run back inside. Luvu fills that B gap and again forces the runner to work inside. Payne doesn’t get reached by the center and instead stacks him up, creating a split in the blocking scheme. But the key factor here is Bobby Wagner. He reads the play so quickly and is immediately working to the right side of the line. If you just focus on him at the snap, you’ll see he’s the first to react and he’s already on his second step towards the line of scrimmage before Luvu takes his first. That enables Wagner to beat the left guard to the spot and go make the tackle.

While the Bucs do like to run zone scheme, they’ve become more and more diverse over the course of the season and leaned a lot more into the gap scheme runs. Something the Commanders have really struggled with is pin-pull schemes, so of course the Bucs tried one.

On this pin-pull scheme, the idea for the Bucs here is to try and pin the defensive end and defensive tackle on the left side of the line inside, enabling the left guard and center to pull to the edge. The Commanders have had weak edges for a lot of the season and have struggled against these types of schemes, but Dante Fowler clearly knew what was coming here and made a terrific play. Fowler is on the edge lines up outside the tight end initially. Just before the snap, he tightens his alignment significantly, to be almost head up on the tight end at the snap of the ball. This gives the tight end a great chance to pin him inside and let the guard and center pull to the edge. But as soon as the tight end approaches him, Fowler recognizes what’s up. He immediately jumps back outside, avoiding the block from the tight end to try and re-establish the edge.

By darting back outside, Fowler messes up the blocking scheme. Suddenly, the pulling left guard that was targeting Frankie Luvu behind Fowler, is forced to try and block Fowler. He’s clearly surprised by Fowler’s move and that enables Fowler to set the edge and force the run back inside. But this sets off another chain of events. The tight end, knowing what Fowler has done, attempts to correct his mistake and exchange jobs with the left guard. He climbs up to try and block Luvu and kick him outside to try and get the run back on track. The problem is, the pulling center also can see what has happened with Fowler and the left guard, so he attempts the same thing. That means Luvu gets both the tight end and the center trying to block him. Despite two blockers coming his way, Luvu is still very physical and is able to hold his own, closing the path to the edge and forcing the back inside.

Luvu and Fowler did a great job, but it would have been wasted without the support from the rest of the unit. Wagner works across from the back side and avoids getting cut off to fill his gap while Jonathan Allen works off the downblock from left tackle Tristan Wirfs to help clog the lane too. But before the runner can even hit that lane, Daron Payne chases him down from the back side after going under the blocker charged with trying to cut him off. Stopping the run is almost always a group effort, especially on schemes like this. The Commanders haven’t been good enough on these types of runs this season, but this shows that they are capable.

After failing with a few different run schemes, the Bucs went back to a scheme that worked for them back in Week 1. Before I show you what happened, let’s first look at that scheme from that first game of the season.